February 27, 2014 | San Francisco, CA, United StatesCo-located with the 9th International Digital Curation Conference

In this hands-on workshop, attendees learned how and why cloud computing is being used for repositories, digital preservation, and research analysis tools. It provided a brief overview of the available services and capabilities of the Microsoft Azure cloud platform for data management, as well as an overview of data resources, cleaning, and analytics tools for Excel in the cloud (Office 365).

This free workshop was part of the 9th International Digital Curation Conference, located at the Omni San Francisco Hotel. The Data Management in the Cloud workshop was held on Thursday, February 27, 2014, from 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.

Note: Registration has now closed.

Workshop overview

In this workshop you will:

Build your own websites in the cloud, followed by deploying a CKAN data portal through Linux virtual machines in Windows Azure with a just few mouse clicks.

Learn about a powerful new suite of tools that extend the capabilities of Excel 2013 to enable rich data discovery and re-use scenarios. Excel’s Power BI allows users to easily clean, transform, and combine data from multiple sources; create powerful analytical models; and create rich and interactive visualizations and tours. Power BI can be used with your local datasets, data that you have stored in the cloud, and other data that is discovered via the DataMarket or elsewhere on the web.

Set up your own repository—by deploying an instance of DataUp where you establish and control the required and optional metadata you want associated with file uploads and you set up your own validation schemas for onboarded data.

Following this workshop, you should feel confident in being able to apply Windows Azure to help with your data management work.

Intended audience: Academics who are interested in knowing more about cloud computing and how it can play a part in data management and curation.

Attendees will be able to access Windows Azure on their own laptop during the training and for evaluation purposes for up to six months after the event. The attendee’s laptop does not need to have the Windows operating system installed—Windows Azure is accessed via your Internet browser.